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  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

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Recording of the conversation of the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Turkey A.V. Terentyev with the prime minister of Turkey R. Saydam *****

May 12, 1939 secret

Today, immediately after the meeting of the Mejlis ****** Refik Saydam invited me to a separate room and spoke in the warmest terms about the satisfaction that the leaders of the Turkish government received from their recent meetings with comrade Potemkin. These meetings made it possible to establish a complete community of views on issues of relations between the two countries, linked by bonds of fraternal friendship.

Saydam believes that in the near future negotiations should be started between representatives of the USSR and Turkey on specific issues, the positive resolution of which will legally formalize the de facto union that exists between the two states. Speaking about Papen, Saydam said that “the Turkish government was aware of the mission of the German ambassador, which was to prevent further rapprochement of Turkey with Britain and the USSR. Papen counted on using his former connections in Turkey, established during the world war. However, this mission of Papen was not crowned with success. ʺ Saydam believes that, in all likelihood, the German ambassador, who is leaving for berlin the other day, will never return to Ankara.

Plenipotentiary of the USSR in Turkey a. Terentyev

Wua rf. F ʹoh, on 4, I 31, d 166, l 242